Mapping the Philippines in the Offshoring Services Global Value Chain

This paper aims to analyse the current position and potential for upgrading of the Philippines in the global value chain of information technology offshoring services. With its rapid growth in the last decade, the Philippines is characterized as strong in voice and is expanding in the non-voice and more complex services sectors. Applying the IT offshoring services framework introduced by the Duke Center on Globalization, Governance and Competitiveness (CGGC) GVC, the analysis shows that the industry's upgrading strategy could pursue the following trajectories: first, upgrading from business process outsourcing (BPO) to knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) especially in medical, financial and legal services; second, expansion and upgrading within information technology outsourcing (ITO); and third, inter-sectoral upgrading to verticals or industry-specific activities, particularly shared services companies, game development, and engineering design in manufacturing. The results of the study indicate that human capital development will be critical in upgrading the Philippines in the information technology and business process management (IT-BPM) global value chain (GVC).